[1563-1563 A.D.]

of Navarre and Montmorency, and it was with difficulty that Poynings could throw a small reinforcement into the place. Though these English troops behaved with gallantry, and though the king of Navarre was mortally wounded during the siege, the Catholics still continued the attack of the place, and carrying it at last by assault put the whole garrison to the sword. The earl of Warwick, eldest son of the late duke of Northumberland, arrived soon after at Havre with another body of three thousand English, and took on him the command of the place.

The duke of Guise, overtaking the Huguenots at Dreux, obliged them to give battle. The action was distinguished by this singular event, that Condé and Montmorency, the commanders of the opposite armies, fell both of them prisoners into the hands of their enemies. The appearances of victory remained with Guise; but the admiral, whose fate it ever was to be defeated, and still to rise more terrible after his misfortunes, collected the remains of the army and subdued some considerable places in Normandy. Elizabeth, the better to support his cause, sent him a new supply of a hundred thousand crowns, and offered, if he could find merchants to lend him the money, to give her bond for another sum of equal amount.

THE PARLIAMENT OF 1563

The expenses incurred by assisting the French Huguenots had emptied the queen's exchequer, and in order to obtain supply she found herself under a necessity of summoning a parliament, January 12th, 1563, an expedient to which she never willingly had recourse. A little before the meeting of this assembly she had fallen into a dangerous illness, the small-pox; and as her life during some time was despaired of, the people became the more sensible of their perilous situation, derived from the uncertainty which, in case of her demise, attended the succession of the crown. The partisans of the queen of Scots and those of the house of Suffolk already divided the nation into factions; and everyone foresaw that though it might be possible at present to determine the controversy by law, yet if the throne were vacant, nothing but the sword would be able to fix a successor.

The commons, therefore, on the opening of the session, voted an address to the queen in which, after enumerating the dangers attending a broken and doubtful succession, and mentioning the evils which their fathers had experienced from the contending titles of York and Lancaster, they entreated the queen to put an end to their apprehensions by choosing some husband whom they promised, whoever he were, gratefully to receive and faithfully to serve, honour, and obey; or, if she had entertained any reluctance to the married state, they desired that the lawful successor might be named, at least appointed, by act of parliament. They remarked that during all the reigns which had passed since the conquest the nation had never before been so unhappy as not to know the person who, in case of the sovereign's death, was legally entitled to fill the vacant throne. And they observed that the fixed order which took place in inheriting the French monarchy was one chief source of the usual tranquillity as well as of the happiness of that kingdom.

This subject, though extremely interesting to the nation, was very little agreeable to the queen, and she was sensible that great difficulties would attend every decision. A declaration in favour of the queen of Scots would form a settlement perfectly legal; but she dreaded giving encouragement

[1563 A.D.] to the Catholics. On the other hand, the title of the house of Suffolk was supported by the more zealous Protestants only, and it was very doubtful whether even a parliamentary declaration in its favour would bestow on it such validity as to give satisfaction to the people.

The queen, weighing all these inconveniences, which were great and urgent, was determined to keep both parties in awe by maintaining still an ambiguous conduct; and she rather chose that the people should run the hazard of contingent events than that she herself should visibly endanger her throne by employing expedients which, at best, would not bestow entire security on the nation. She gave therefore an evasive answer to the applications of the commons. She only told them, contrary to her declarations in the beginning of her reign, that she had fixed no absolute resolution against marriage.

The most remarkable law passed this session was that which bore the title of "Assurance of the queen's royal power over all states and subjects within her dominions." By this act, the asserting twice by writing, word, or deed,

the pope's authority, was subjected to the penalties of treason. All persons in holy orders were bound to take the oath of supremacy; as also all who were advanced to any degree, either in the universities or in common law; all schoolmasters, officers in court, or members of parliament. The penalty of their second refusal was treason. The first offence, in both cases, was punished by banishment and forfeiture. This rigorous statute was not extended to any of the degree of a baron.

There was likewise another point, in which the parliament this session showed more the goodness of their intention than the soundness of their judgment. They passed a law against fond and fantastical prophecies, which had been observed to seduce the people into rebellion and disorder; but at the same time they enacted a statute which was most likely to increase these and such like superstitions: It was levelled against conjurations, enchantments, and witchcraft. Witchcraft and heresy are two crimes which commonly increase by punishment, and never are so effectually suppressed as by being totally neglected. After the parliament had granted the queen a supply of one subsidy and two fifteenths, the session was finished by a prorogation. The convocation likewise voted the queen a subsidy of six shillings in the pound, payable in three years.

[1563 A.D.]

THE LOSS OF HAVRE

While the English parties exerted these calm efforts against each other in parliamentary votes and debates, the French factions, inflamed to the highest degree of animosity, continued that cruel war which their intemperate zeal, actuated by the ambition of their leaders, had kindled in the kingdom. The admiral was successful in reducing the towns of Normandy which held for the king, but he frequently complained that the numerous garrison of Havre remained totally inactive and was not employed in any military operation against the common enemy. The leaders of the Huguenots were persuaded to hearken to terms of a separate accommodation, and soon came to an agreement. A toleration under some restrictions was anew granted to the Protestants; a general amnesty was published; Condé was reinstated in his offices and governments.

By the agreement between Elizabeth and the prince of Condé it had been stipulated that neither party should conclude peace without the consent of the other; but this article was at present but little regarded by the leaders of the French Protestants. They only comprehended her so far in the treaty as to obtain a promise that on her relinquishing Havre her charges, and the money which she had advanced them, should be repaid her by the king of France, and that Calais on the expiration of the term should be restored to her. But she disdained to accept of these conditions; and thinking the possession of Havre a much better pledge for effecting her purpose, she sent Warwick orders to prepare himself against an attack from the now united power of the French monarchy.

The earl of Warwick, who commanded a garrison of six thousand men, besides seven hundred pioneers, had no sooner got possession of Havre than he employed every means for putting it in a posture of defence; and after expelling the French from the town he encouraged his soldiers to make the most desperate defence against the enemy. The constable commanded the French army; the queen regent herself, and the king, were present in the camp; even the prince of Condé joined the king's forces and gave countenance to this enterprise. The plague crept in among the English soldiers, and being increased by their fatigue and bad diet (for they were but ill supplied with provisions), it made such ravages that sometimes a hundred men a day died of it, and there remained at last not fifteen hundred in a condition to do duty. The French meeting with such feeble resistance carried on their attacks successfully; and having made two breaches, each of them sixty feet wide, they prepared for a general assault which must have terminated in the slaughter of the whole garrison. Warwick, who had frequently warned the English council of the danger, and who had loudly demanded a supply of men and provisions, found himself obliged to capitulate, July 28th, 1563, and to content himself with the liberty of withdrawing his garrison.

The articles were no sooner signed than Lord Clinton, the admiral, who had been detained by contrary winds, appeared off the harbour with a reinforcement of three thousand men, and found the place surrendered to the enemy. To increase the misfortune, the infected army brought the plague with them into England, where it swept off great multitudes, particularly in the city of London. Above twenty thousand persons there died of it in

one year.

Elizabeth, whose usual vigour and foresight had not appeared in this transaction, was now glad to compound matters; and as the queen regent

[1564-1567 A.D.] desired to obtain leisure in order to prepare measures for the extermination of the Huguenots she readily hearkened to any reasonable terms of accommodation with England. A peace signed at Troyes on the 11th of April, 1564, was shortly after proclaimed with sound of trumpet before the queen's majesty in her castle of Windsor, the French ambassadors being present. By this new treaty Elizabeth delivered up the hostages which the French had given for the restitution of Calais; but she received two hundred and twenty thousand crowns for their liberation. The questions of the restitution of Calais and other matters were left in the state they were in before the late hostilities, each party retaining its claims and pretensions, which were to be settled by after negotiation.d

In 1564 Elizabeth's friend the prince of Condé was disgusted by being refused the post of lieutenant-general of the realm, left vacant by the death of the king of Navarre; and as the Protestants saw that the treaty of peace made in the preceding year in order to expel the English from Havre was not kept, and that the court was revoking the liberty of conscience, it was easy for the prince to assemble once more a formidable army. But for some time the Huguenots were kept in awe in the north of France by a large force, which the court had collected to guard the frontier from any violation that might arise out of the disturbed state of the Netherlands, whose discontent, which became in the end another war of religion, was at first common to both Protestants and Catholics.

The powerful prince of Orange and the counts of Egmont and Hoorn placed themselves at the head of their countrymen, and a confederacy, in which the Catholics acted with the Protestants, was formed in the spring of 1566 with the avowed object of putting down the Inquisition and with the more secret design of recovering the constitutional rights of the country.1 The duchess of Parma, who governed the provinces in the name of Philip, yielded to the storm, and declared that the Inquisition should be abolished. At this point the Catholics and Protestants separated.

Philip had determined that no clemency should be shown to men who were doubly damned as heretics and rebels. He recalled the duchess of Parma, and despatched the famous duke of Alva, who was as admirable as a military commander as he was detestable as a bigot, or as a passive instrument to despotism, with an army still more formidable from its discipline than from its numbers, to restore obedience and a uniformity of belief in the low countries.

The success of Alva alarmed the Protestants everywhere; in England and in Scotland it cast a cloud which was never to be removed over the fortunes of Mary, but it was in France that it excited the wildest panic. The Huguenots, who were always a minority, saw that they must be crushed, and maintained that Alva was specially appointed to carry into effect the secret treaty of Bayonne for the forcible restoring of all Protestants to the obedience of the church. With this conviction the Huguenots resolved to anticipate their enemies. The prince of Condé renewed an old correspondence with the prince of Orange, with the English court, and with others interested in opposing the Bayonne treaty; and he, with Coligny and other chiefs of the party, laid a plot for surprising the king-the contemptible and wretched Charles IX-and all his court at Monceaux.

King Charles was saved from the hands of his Protestant subjects by the fidelity and bravery of his Swiss mercenaries. Elizabeth had sent Condé

[' For full details of the affairs of the Netherlands see Volume XIII.]

[1567-1568 A.D.]

money and advice; and it has been asserted that she was privy to this plot, and that her ambassador, Sir Henry Norris, was deeply implicated in its arrangement.

In the following spring (1568) three thousand French Protestants crossed the northern frontier to join the prince of Orange, who had taken the field against the Spaniards. But at the end of the campaign the prince of Orange was obliged to recross the Rhine and disband what remained of his army.

These Protestant troops had been in a good measure raised by English money secretly supplied by Elizabeth, who at the same time was at peace with Philip, and in public took care to proclaim her respect for the Spanish monarch and her dislike of all rebellions; nor did she relax her efforts or despair of success to the insurgents, either in the Netherlands or in France. The government of the latter country had given in the preceding year what might have been considered a provocation to war, but she and Cecil were determined to have no open war. When, at the expiration of the term fixed by the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, Sir Henry Norris demanded the restitution of Calais, the French chancellor quoted an article of the treaty by which Elizabeth was to forfeit all claim to that town if she committed hostilities upon France; and further told Norris that as she had taken possession of Havre she had brought herself within the scope of that clause.

In 1567 Elizabeth had entered anew into matrimonial negotiations. Her old suitor the archduke Charles wrote her a very flattering letter; but Elizabeth fell back upon the fears and the strong religious feelings of her Protestant subjects, protesting to the Austrian that they would never tolerate a Catholic prince.

NORFOLK'S PLAN TO WED MARY

But intrigues for an obnoxious marriage-that of the duke of Norfolk with the queen of Scots-were now in full activity. In that dishonourable age it was a common practice (as it has been in some later times) for people to enter into plots for the sole purpose of betraying them to the government and reaping a suitable reward. There were too many engaged in the present scheme to allow of any hope of secrecy. Even before Murray had returned to Scotland, or Queen Mary had been removed to Tutbury Castle, Elizabeth had alternately reproached and tempted the duke of Norfolk, who assured her that if there had been a talk of his marrying the Scottish queen the project had not originated with him and had never met his wishes-"and if her majesty would move him thereto, he would rather be committed to the Tower, for he meant never to marry with such a person where he could not be sure of his pillow."

The allusion to the fate of Darnley gratified the queen, and she accepted Norfolk's excuses. But it is said that only a day or two after his making this protestation the duke conferred in secret, in the park at Hampton Court, with the earl of Murray, and then with the bishop of Ross and Maitland of Lethington, when he agreed that if Mary could be restored to her liberty and her throne he would marry her; they, on the other hand, assuring him that such a nobleman as himself, courteous, wealthy, and a Protestant, could not fail of restoring tranquillity to Scotland and maintaining peace and a perfect understanding between the two countries.

He was son to the Norris who suffered death on account of Anne Boleyn. One of Elizabeth's first cares had been to promote this family.]